I have a confession.

Every year, about two weeks before the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, I read the official press release. Every year, it’s the same. “Four days of strategy work, educational sessions, and high-value networking.” Keynote lineup announced. Sponsors listed. Agenda locked.

And every year, I think: they’re describing the skeleton of the event. But the thing that actually matters — the reason people have been flying to Las Vegas for this show for decades — isn’t on any agenda.

CP Expo 2026 runs April 13–16 at the Venetian. Twelve days out. Hotels are booked. Flights are done. A lot of you have already registered and haven’t thought about it since.

This is the piece for those people.

The Keynotes Are Good This Year. Actually Good.

I’m not usually the guy who tells you to sit through keynotes. I’ve seen too many of them. Vendor exec takes the stage. Slides full of words like “transformative” and “AI-first.” The audience checks email. Everyone claps at the end.

This year is different, and I say that as someone who has absolutely been burned by that sentence before.

Timo Bauer, Global Head of Commercial Partner Channels for Amazon Leo, is headlining the opening keynote. Amazon Leo is the company’s low Earth orbit satellite initiative — the Project Kuiper buildout that competes with Starlink. Bauer’s title is the tell. He’s not the CTO. He’s not a product lead. He’s the person building the reseller ecosystem. His presence at CP Expo is a channel recruitment announcement with a keynote as the packaging.

If you sell connectivity — or if you’re watching the LEO market trying to figure out when it becomes real for your customers — you want to be in that room.

Mark Tina from Verizon is also taking the stage. We’ve covered what Verizon’s channel centralization means for partners — and his session on business convergence is him making the case in person. Mobility, business internet, managed services coming together as a single sales conversation. That’s a pitch, but it’s also the direction the market is heading, and hearing it from the channel chief directly is worth your time.

The Sessions You’re Going to Skip (But Shouldn’t)

Here’s how conference attendance usually goes. You go to the keynotes because they’re early and you’re already caffeinated. You go to a couple of sessions that match what you already believe. You mostly spend afternoons on the show floor talking to vendors and collecting branded bags. Then the evenings are dinner and drinks, which is where you actually learn something.

The sessions you’re going to skip are the ones that challenge something you’re doing. I know this because I’ve watched it happen for years. A session on “Why Your Current Go-To-Market Is Broken” runs at 2pm on day two and gets half the attendance of “Building Your AI Practice: Quick Wins for 2026.”

The quick-wins session tells you what you want to hear. The uncomfortable session tells you what you need to hear.

Do yourself a favor. Before the conference, look at the sessions that make you defensive. The ones where you read the title and think “I don’t really need that.” Schedule those. Your reaction to the title is usually a sign that you do.

The Show Floor Isn’t a Shopping Mall

I have this theory about expo halls. Most people use them wrong. They walk the floor, pick up swag, get cornered by vendors running demos, collect business cards they’ll never follow up on, and leave exhausted and vaguely annoyed.

The people who get value from the floor know why they’re there before they walk in. They have four or five conversations they want to have with specific vendors or vendor reps. They’ve done some homework. They know what questions to ask.

This year, the conversations worth having are about AI tooling and how it actually integrates with your existing stack. Not the pitch version — the real version. Ask the vendor reps what their customers complain about most. Ask what the failed implementations have in common. You’ll learn more from those answers than from any demo.

Cole already broke down what Amazon LEO’s presence means for connectivity resellers. That conversation is worth having on the floor if you can get face time with the team.

The Part That Doesn’t Make the Agenda

The conference officially starts Monday, April 13. The conference actually starts Sunday evening, when the first parties and dinners fill up and the real conversations begin.

I’ve gotten more useful information at dinner on the Sunday before CP Expo than I have in two full days of sessions. The reason is simple: when the pressure to perform is off, people tell you what they actually think. The carrier VP who can’t say certain things in a keynote will tell you at dinner that their channel team is understaffed and deals are falling through the cracks. The vendor exec who gave a polished presentation in the afternoon will admit at the bar that the new platform launch is six months behind.

I’m not telling you to go chase gossip. I’m telling you that the relationships you build in the informal margins of this conference are worth more than anything you’ll get from the official programming.

Make your Sunday plans. Don’t show up Monday morning as your first move.

What I’m Actually Watching

Honestly? The vibe.

I’m paying attention to how crowded it is — not by total attendance, but by energy. The industry went through a rough patch in 2024 when the AI hype was high and the actual revenue wasn’t there yet. The shows felt anxious. There was a lot of “what does this mean for us” energy and not a lot of answers.

My read going into 2026 is that the answers are starting to show up. Partners who made AI bets early are seeing real revenue. The MSP model is under pressure from AI-native competitors, but there’s also real opportunity for partners who’ve been building the right practices.

The conference will tell you something about where the industry is emotionally. People who are confident spend differently than people who are scared. Vendors who are winning invest in booth space and entertainment; vendors who are struggling do too, but you can tell the difference if you’ve been doing this long enough.

Come find me on the floor. I’ll be the one nursing a coffee, making notes, and pretending I’m not eavesdropping.

See you in Vegas.

Going to CP Expo? Have a hot take, a vendor story, or something the industry needs to hear? Send it to the Burn Report — we’ll protect your identity and publish what matters.